Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Depressing Debate

I have just witnessed the most depressing debate on Newsnight about the European Constitution. Paxo had wheeled in two twenty somethings who were the respective heads of Britain in Europe and the Vote No Campaign, neither of whom were on top of their subject and came out with some utter balls. Matthew McGregor from Vote No even managed to say that his organisation didn't object to a Constitution in principle. Well that gives away one of the stringest arguments they have! Surely one of the reaons for objecting to it is the fact that a Constitution implies Statehood and we do not believe the UK should be signing up to a United States of Europe. Lucy from Britain in Europe had Paxo lost for words when she said the referndum had nothing to do with Europe! I hope the debate improves a little on what we saw tonight.

7 comments:

malcolm
said...

I watched newsnight too.I suspect the vote no spokesman was picked because he wasn't a Conservative.The only decent bit of the interview was when (the very smug and unnecessarily rude)Paxman accused Vote No of being a tory front organisation to be told that their spokesman was a Labour party member! The Britain in Europe person was typically useless. I was fully expecting her to launch into the usual 'xenophobic little Englander'diatribe so beloved by these people when they have lost the arguement. I suspect the quality of the debate will rise the closer the referendum (if we have) one gets. Very sad to read that Lord Hurd and far more importantly Jeremy Clarkson have agreed to campaign for Britain in Europe. I thought Hurd had seen the light on Europe and had always believed Clarkson would be a card carrying member of UKIP.Perhaps the Times got it wrong,wouldn't be the first time!

Oh God!Is Toots a close friend of yours?Sadly most people who are anti Europe tend to be "Little Englanders" They also tend to be paranoid to some degree or another. I know of one vitriolic anti European [a member of the right wing of UKIP] whose philosophical genesis arose from his experiences of being spanked frequently by his German/Austrian nanny. He was subsequently punished in the same way by a Norwegian nanny. Although he was 27 at the time the experiences left an indelible impression on him which tatoos failed to cover up.

'most people who are anti Europe tend to be little Englanders'-oh really? I suppose you mean Tony Benn,David Owen,Austin Mitchell etc etc etc. The fact is many is many of the institutions of the EU are incompetent,corrupt and anti-democratic and if the EU is to continue they must be reformed. Why is it that Europhiles so rarely seem to be able to argue their case without resorting to meaningless cliches or personal abuse. You obviously keep very strange company Robb's Grandfather,imagine being acqainted with someone who is a member of the 'right wing of UKIP' I've never heard of anything worse!